The
Irascible ProfessorSM

Irreverent
Commentary on the State of Education in America Today

by
Dr. Mark H. Shapiro

"Some
books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be
chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in
parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read
wholly, and with diligence and attention."...
...Sir Francis Bacon.

Commentary of the Day - June 18, 2010: Sometimes a Book is
Just a Book.
Guest commentary by Beverly C. Lucey.

An organization
called The National Association of Scholars has
complained about the practice followed by many
colleges and universities of assigning or suggesting
a single book to be read by their entering freshman
before or during orientation. It's not the book
itself, however, that garners negative attention
from this group. Those colleges that follow the
practice generally assign a book that is considered
accessible to their particular students in the
summer before their lives are about to change in the
four or more unpredictable years ahead. One
book! This book that their entering class might use
as a common starting point for self-directed
learning, usually is followed up with some beginning
efforts in critical thinking when the students enter
their general education courses.

What could it be
that the National Association of Scholars objects
to? It turns out that they've done a study
and have decided that almost all of these books
could be considered politically liberal. Aha! A
novel, a memoir, a narrative about a current issue
has a bias, a leaning, a tilt. Oh, dear! The
members of the
National Association of Scholars are united by their
mission statement: "Scholars and citizens working
together to re-civilize higher education."

Far be it from me to
say that entering college freshman arrive on campus
especially civilized. Some might still be hung over
from Labor Day parties. If they all read a book
over the summer while also having goodbye
get-togethers with a bunch of people they won't care
about by their tenth year reunion, then my impulse,
as an instructor of freshman composition is to do a
little dance. Just a little one, with proper
academic decorum. I'm too used to having 40%
of my students tell me they never read unassigned
material. In fact, this same percentage of my
students assert that they don't like to read at all.

"The founders of NAS
summoned faculty members from across the political
spectrum to help defend the core values of liberal
education," they say.

So, some uses of the
word "liberal" are more equal than other liberal
contexts. I can wrap my head around that. Besides,
if an organization, just starting, can summon
faculty from across the political spectrum, they
seem to have gotten off to a powerful start. "Core
values" are important to me. I do believe I have
some. Most places of learning have some. Even
diploma mills have some. Although the latter's core
values seem to be: A diploma is valuable. We're
willing to sell you one to enrich ourselves, and
maybe you, as well, as long as you're willing to
lie.

The National Association of Scholars say that the
college community "assumes that undergraduates
arrive on campus bearing a benighted inheritance --
the values of traditional American culture -- that
must be replaced by more enlightened attitudes. Students must confess their racial, sexual, and
other prejudices; admit that American society is, by
its nature, oppressive; and pledge to promote
specific forms of social and political change.
In short, the "student learning imperative" aims at
winning converts to an orthodoxy. The imperativists offer thought reform, not education."

Oh, language. Here I thought 'imperative' meant
something we ought to consider doing, right now,
because it's important. Not important as in must
call Vickie to remind her that you are meeting at
Chilis not Applebees important, but making
considered actions that you believe in your moral
center will improve the world we live in. Ethicists
use the term imperativist as something like the
emphasis on moral laws, duties, obligations,
prohibitions, and the like. I'd pay good, hard
earned tuition fees if my kid could get a degree and
graduate with that kind of moral center.

Most of the Association's concerns seem to revolve
around dorm life and reveal their disdain for the
term 'community building'. It seems residence halls
are where the hard core imperativists are.

What's the issue around assigning one book over the
summer for everyone to talk about?

Inside Higher Ed in its June 4, 2010 issue
explains. The Association objects to the clear
liberal bias in the choices for said assignments.
Critics complained about a book that attempts to
acquaint students with a view of what the Qur'an
(Koran) does and does not stand for. The next year
the same university had to go to court to defend its
choice of Nickel and Dimed, the Barbara
Ehrenreich book on the working poor. Shame on
Chapel Hill for hoping students might get to
thinking about either of the issues brought up in
each book.

No
matter what we read, we approach material with a
variety of view points. I've lead enough class
discussions to know that an essay I might think is
obviously promulgating one view, hits students very
differently. That is why many have such difficulty
evaluating any kind of bias on websites, never mind
reading material.

The
Association notes, "...Of the 180 books, 126 (70
percent) either explicitly promote a liberal
political agenda or advance a liberal interpretation
of events. By contrast, the study identifies
only three books (less than 2 percent) that promote
a conservative sensibility and none that promote
conservative political causes."

Subjects noted as 'liberal' are immigration, the
Holocaust, building schools in Afghanistan, an over
abundance of books about Africa, and five unnamed
books about dysfunctional families. Books about
environmental issues rounded out their
concern...because we know how politically biased
science is. Science and the scientific
method? Not fair and balanced? Just ask U.S. Sen.
James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.)

Faculty who were interviewed for the article make
the point that books written since members of the
incoming class were born, are more likely to be both
accessible and of interest to students. Also,
campus speaking programs are much more likely to
attract an audience if the author of the assigned
book is, well, not dead.

Students will then disperse into their majors, hang
around with people who share their interests, and
take courses with challenging material that will be
guided by experts in the field. Some of that
material, even within a person's major, even with an
excellent professor might still kill the spirit of a
student. As an enthusiastic English major, no
one could then, nor could today, make me think that
Romantic Prose is worth my time. I've got too many
books to read and life is short.

Still, a book is a good place to start making the
transition into academic life. While many of
us can point to one book that has been eye opening,
provided a new look at a subject we thought we knew
well, or turned out to be truly life changing, it's
definitely not going to be the same book.

The
Irascible Professor comments: The IP agrees with
Beverley, and would even go a step further.
There is an old adage in politics that says "follow
the money." And, when we take a close look at
the National Association of Scholars we find that it
has a fairly powerful voice, a much louder voice
than we would expect for an organization that claims
only about 4,000 members on college and university
campuses across the country. For example, the
American Physical Society to which most American
physics professors belong boasts a membership of
48,000. While the APS includes non-academic as
well as academic physicists, more than half its
members work in colleges and universities. The
reason then for the loud voice of the National
Association of Scholars comes not so much from its
numbers, but rather because it is especially
well-funded. Those funds come not from the
membership by and large, but from a small number of
very well-heeled, very conservative foundations. They
include or have included the
Sarah Scaife Foundation,
the
John M. Olin Foundation,
the
Bradley Foundation,
the
Castle Rock Foundation,
and the
Smith Richardson Foundation.
Though the NAS claims that its mission is
"to foster intellectual freedom and to sustain the
tradition of reasoned scholarship and civil debate
in America’s colleges and universities."
However, in practice its operations seem to the IP
to be aimed mostly at promoting right-wing ideology
rather than reasoned scholarship. Their
opposition to affirmative action on college campuses
has bordered on the extreme, in the Irascible
Professor's opinion; and, their opposition to
programs that would increase the number of minority
students on college campuses at times has seemed to
the Irascible Professor to verge on outright
bigotry. Given the lens through which the NAS
views the world, it is not surprising that they
would be upset with books like Nickel and Dimed,
which presented a rather unflattering view of
working conditions for those Americans near the
bottom of the economic ladder, or that they might be
upset about books that challenge right-wing views of
environmental issues. And, they certainly are
within their rights to voice their displeasure.
But, in reality, most of the books on those summer
reading lists are neither very liberal nor very
conservative. As Beverly says, they just are
books.